Mark Wilkinson of London looks at works Andrew Purchin and Jon Bailiff are giving away in Santa Cruz. Purchin sees his public art installation as a way to make the narrative of the inauguration more inclusive.

Four years ago, Andrew Purchin set up his easel in the nation's capital to capture the crowd on Inauguration Day. He painted alone. When he returns Monday, he will be one artist among many.

"It was incredibly moving in 2009. It was the best day of my life," said the 50-year-old Santa Cruz artist and psychotherapist. "But it will be second best after this year's inauguration."

That's because he has organized a public art-making installation, "A Thousand Artists: Inauguration 2013," which will take place Monday on the National Mall. Purchin hopes that his project will highlight art's power to change people and society.

"I'm very convinced that the making of art is a language," he said. "It's so much more than just something pretty you put up on a wall. It's an activity and a way of speaking that is so hard to describe."

He envisions an army of artists at President Obama's inauguration quietly drawing, sculpting, painting, knitting, dancing, writing or whatever - with the focus of monks meditating. They'll all wear white jumpsuits and orange beanies supplied by Purchin, who would be surprised if 1,000 people actually come out. (He has bought outfits for 250.)

"Orange sticks out and is the color of safety in our culture," he said. "If everyone made art for at least five minutes a day, we would all be safer. People would be more sensitized to the world around them and be more reflective and innovative."

The DIY spirit

"Making art on the spot engages people in a way that televised broadcasts and celebrities can never capture," said Bright, 54, of Santa Cruz. "It's a bit like bringing the creative DIY spirit of Burning Man to the White House."

Bright, who will send live tweets from the event, said art making cuts through walls.

"Public art changes the narrative that the inauguration is about a few fancy people and the designer clothes they wear, or a single sentence from a speech for pundits to bicker over," she said. "It reminds you that America is by the people and for the people - and art is what adds the magic to that equation."

Purchin is not normally the kind of person who organizes things. "This is something out of my comfort zone on so many levels," he said. "On the other hand, I've done some aerial dance, even though I'm afraid of heights."

In the studio behind his house, he showed off paintings he made at both national political conventions last year, along with his 2009 inauguration work. He and his partner, Scotty Brookie, tried but failed to get tickets to the inauguration. The two men went anyway.

"I was inspired by President Obama and I loved his 'Audacity of Hope' message," Purchin said. "I thought, 'What's audacious for me? I paint in public. I paint events. I'm going to paint the inauguration.' "

On that cold January day in 2009, he leaned his easel against a tree. Some people near him stood atop portable toilets. Others were so far away that they looked like candy sprinkles. One woman brushed her fur coat against Purchin's canvas.

"She was apologetic," Purchin recalled. "She said, 'Oh no, your painting!' And I said, 'Oh no, your coat!' I'm so thankful I didn't get a ticket. It would have been a more stodgy experience."

Outside the GOP convention in Tampa in August, he was surrounded at one point by eight police officers worried that he might paste up a banner publicizing his project. "They asked what I was doing," Purchin said. "When I explained, they yelled, 'It's just an artist.' I thought, 'OK, marginalized again.' "

He said it's more important to create art at the 2013 inauguration than it was four years ago: "We're more polarized now and less compassionate. I'm tired of the way our electoral discourse goes. It creates apathy and aggression, and it's not good for the country."

Purchin has spent about $10,000 on the project, including postcards that mention its website, www.athousandartists.com, and bumper stickers that say: "The making of art is the ultimate democracy." His train is scheduled to arrive Saturday in Washington. On Sunday artists will spread out to museums, hotels, monuments and tourist attractions.

'Set the tone'

"What we do at the inauguration sets the tone for the next four years," said Purchin, a registered Democrat who considers himself a moderate liberal but planned to do the installation no matter who became president. As a prelude, he painted on the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk on New Year's Day. Jon Bailiff was there, too.

Bailiff regards "A Thousand Artists" as a vehicle for creative self-expression in the midst of a profound national ritual. "So few Americans ever have the experience of seeing an artist at work, though we are all bathed in the so-called entertainment media 24/7," he said.

Los Angeles printmaker Oscar Eliseo Moreno, 23, is making his first trip to the East Coast to join the project, where he'll give away 500 silkscreen patches - including an image of a merged donkey-elephant.

"The inauguration seems like the best place to magnify the importance of art, especially when the arts are so underfunded," Moreno said. "If everyone had some sort of creative outlet, our society wouldn't be as crazy as it appears to be these days."